I'm trying to get a handle on the amount of oak to put into wines this
year, as I haven't quite figured it out yet from years past.

Is there a simple approximation of the amount of oak beans per gallon
that would compare to the oak flavor developed off of a full sized
barrel? Is it as simple as equivalent surface areas?

Rob

For reds, maybe start with 1/2 ounce per gallon, I use twice that. The
toast matters, an extra heavy toast does not impart as much as medium
or heavy.

For whites, about 1/5 of what you use for red.

Joe

Stavin gives the formula: 2.5 to 3 oz./5 gal = new oak barrel

In my experience this seems pretty accurate.

Ed



"Rob" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> I'm trying to get a handle on the amount of oak to put into wines this
> year, as I haven't quite figured it out yet from years past.
>
> Is there a simple approximation of the amount of oak beans per gallon
> that would compare to the oak flavor developed off of a full sized
> barrel? Is it as simple as equivalent surface areas?
>
> Rob
>

Boy, that is a tough question. It is a mater of taste. You can use Stavin'
suggestion as a start. I find that I need more. One of the problems is
that oak flavor will fade with time. At the end of a 3 month soak you may
decide you have plenty of oak. Then a year later there may be very little
oak flavor left. Also, what do you mean by a new barrel taste. Are you
talking about a 10 gallon barrel or a 60 gallon barrel? Very different.
Are you talking about 1 to 3 months in a new barrel or a year in a new
barrel?

Ray

"Rob" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> I'm trying to get a handle on the amount of oak to put into wines this
> year, as I haven't quite figured it out yet from years past.
>
> Is there a simple approximation of the amount of oak beans per gallon
> that would compare to the oak flavor developed off of a full sized
> barrel? Is it as simple as equivalent surface areas?
>
> Rob
>

I know I'm not asking an easy one!

I'm using 6 gallon carboys, and am trying to get some oak flavor into
the wine (Pinot, Zin, etc.). My wife and I both are terribly troubled
by overoaked wine - where you take a sip and need tweezers to take out
the splinters. So I'm not going for full-on 100% new oak flavors.
What I think I'd like is the equivalent of 25-35% "new oak" aged wines,
in standard 60 gallon barrels, for standard red-wine aging (a year/18
months). How's that for a target?

Last year I had a Merlot that was, well, apparently not the best juice
I could get (I bought it as juice, but it appeared to be at about 1/2
concentration), and 2 oz oak cubes turned it into a tree trunk. This
year's Zin and Pinot are better, both with about 2 oz/6 gallons, but
instead of floundering too much, I figured if there was a intelligence
shortcut I could take, it'd be found here.

Rob

Rob wrote:
> I know I'm not asking an easy one!
>
> I'm using 6 gallon carboys, and am trying to get some oak flavor into
> the wine (Pinot, Zin, etc.). My wife and I both are terribly troubled
> by overoaked wine - where you take a sip and need tweezers to take out
> the splinters. So I'm not going for full-on 100% new oak flavors.
> What I think I'd like is the equivalent of 25-35% "new oak" aged wines,
> in standard 60 gallon barrels, for standard red-wine aging (a year/18
> months). How's that for a target?
>
> Last year I had a Merlot that was, well, apparently not the best juice
> I could get (I bought it as juice, but it appeared to be at about 1/2
> concentration), and 2 oz oak cubes turned it into a tree trunk. This
> year's Zin and Pinot are better, both with about 2 oz/6 gallons, but
> instead of floundering too much, I figured if there was a intelligence
> shortcut I could take, it'd be found here.
>
> Rob

This is on the things that's really hard to quantify, it depends on
personal taste. I'm in your camp - I did some pretty big reds last year
with the Stavin recommended dosage and find them generally overoaked at
this stage (1 year). So my suggestion would be to start easy, say 1 oz
/ 6 gals and add more later if you find the oak light. Or use more but
monitor the development regularly and pull the cubes out when you've
gto where you wanted. But as ray said, this might change as the wine
ages, so it is something of a tough call.

In any case, better less oak than too much.

Pp

"Rob" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> What I think I'd like is the equivalent of 25-35% "new oak" aged wines,
> in standard 60 gallon barrels, for standard red-wine aging (a year/18
> months). How's that for a target?

Whatever floats your boat. ;^)

It's too late for this batch, but in future I recommend that you add oak to
the fermenter, right from the beginning. The fermentation tends to fine the
harsh tannins in situ, and the result is oak character that is much better
integrated with the fruit. That's one of the reasons that barrel
fermentaions are so desirable for oak aged white wines.

For this years batch, I'd suggest that you pull out a gallon or so, add a
weighed eyeballometric amount of oak to it, let it sit for a couple or three
months and taste it. If that's about right, treat the rest of the batch in
the same proportion and duration. If it's overoaked, titrate it with some
of the unoaked wine until it tastes right and calculate from the added
volume of wine what the correct oak addition for the remainder of the wine
should be. Simple, no?

Basically, it works analogously to conducting fining trials. Run a test on
a small portion of the batch and then scale things up to treat the entire
batch. Be sure to check your numbers though. Better still, especially if
your math skills aren't so hot, get someone _else_ to check your
calculations.

Tom S

Thanks everyone - this has been very helpful.

I just tasted last year's pinots (two different clones) prior to
bottling to get them out of the way of this year's harvest. Both
received the same (~2-2.5 oz oak/6 gallons) oak, for about a month and
between primary and secondary fermentation. One is obviously
overoaked, but interesting, the other is oaked properly but bland.
Hmmm....

Think I'll go find one of those eyeballometers that Tom speaks so
highly of....

Thanks again, everyone!

Rob

I remmeber last year my garage had a swarm of fruit flies.

I keep everything very clean, but they still appear.

With my garden dying down, I am noticing some already, in my garage.

Any type of pre-treatment I can do before I start fermenting wine?

thanks

You can't stop them from coming. Just keep your fermenter tightly
closed (plastic sheet tied over a open fermenter helps very well).

And build a fruit fly trap. A half full bottle of wine works well.
They fly in, get stuck due to the neck and then drown.

Fishhead, I get the same problem each year. I don't know any
techniques for prevention or extinction, but the homemade flytrap
approach significantly reduces the population. I remove some of the
grape juice before I add yeast. Put the juice in a wide mouth
containter (I use an old tupperware bowl) and add a drop of dish soap.
While you'd probably trap some w/ the juice alone, the soap seems to
improve the results. Probably due to the increased surface tension of
the soap addition. I like using juice instead of wine b/c I don't want
those buggers carrying acetic acid bacteria into my fermenting
juice....not sure how sound my logic is though.

A good prevention measure is to crush/destem outside, so that all of
the ones already hangin' out on the grapes don't get invited in. When
you press, immediately remove the pomace from your winemaking area.
Keep your area clean and free of exposed juice and wine. Like Droopy,
I use a plastic sheet over my fermentor....kinda like a big shower cap.
Happy Hunting, -David